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You need to really give this book your full attention. It is brilliant, but you can easily become confused because the fantasy elements are mixed with reality and it is not always easy to distinguish which is which. I'm putting this on my reread list because I didn't realize who was "human" and who was of another "race" until well into the book.
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This is one of those rare books where the less you know going in, the better. That said -- Isserly is a young woman who prowls the drab roads (mainly the A9) of northeast Scotland (the eastern part of Ross-Shire, north of Inverness) in her battered car, looking for male hitchhikers. If this sounds strange, it certainly is -- although she's got a perfectly good reason to do so, it's her job. To say much more would be to spoil the very slippery, strange, and affecting story, which blends elements
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03/26/08
TITLE/AUTHOR: UNDER THE SKIN by Michel Faber
RATING: 4/B
GENRE/PUB DATE/# OF PGS: Fiction/2000/296 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE: Stand Alone
TIME/PLACE: 1990's/Scotland
CHARACTERS: Isserly
FIRST LINES: Isserley always drove straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him to give herself time to size him up.
COMMENTS: 03/20/08 rec as bookcrossing ring/ray. Strange book to classify -- starts out like a crime fiction/mystery w/ an odd woman roaming the roads of Scotland on the lookout for possibl ...more
TITLE/AUTHOR: UNDER THE SKIN by Michel Faber
RATING: 4/B
GENRE/PUB DATE/# OF PGS: Fiction/2000/296 pgs
SERIES/STAND ALONE: Stand Alone
TIME/PLACE: 1990's/Scotland
CHARACTERS: Isserly
FIRST LINES: Isserley always drove straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him to give herself time to size him up.
COMMENTS: 03/20/08 rec as bookcrossing ring/ray. Strange book to classify -- starts out like a crime fiction/mystery w/ an odd woman roaming the roads of Scotland on the lookout for possibl ...more
The first third of this story held a lot of promise. It was mysterious and creepy—this weird woman cruising around picking up strange men to do something to them. But then as the layers are gradually peeled back…meh. Nothing much happens. Faber subverts your expectations in that way. It didn’t turn out to be some fantastical yarn like I had hoped nor did it turn into some moralizing, in-your-face screed about the mystery issue as I had feared either. It’s exactly as Faber intends it to be, of co
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A strange novel that didn't alienate me to the point where it didn't get under my skin . . .
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Feb 03, 2011
SandyC
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books-must-read-before-dying
Jan 04, 2013
Mirja
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books-you-must-read-before-you
Mar 26, 2013
Terri
marked it as boxall-s-1001
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction-general,
scotland-fiction
Sep 08, 2013
Tok
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
book-i-own,
read-in-english
